Teaching Environmental Literacy: Across Campus and Across the Curriculum

8 Teaching Environmental Communication Through Rhetorical Controversy

8 Teaching Environmental Communication Through Rhetorical Controversy Phaedra C. Pezzullo Communication and Culture The problem the environmental community has is they don’t listen to their opponents. When I do my research, I spend more time studying the opposition argument because that’s what I need to respond to. —frank luntz At the turn of the century, Frank Luntz is one of the most famous communication professionals in the United States. With an undergraduate degree in history and political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in politics from Oxford University, he has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and George Washington University. A Republican pollster The epigraph is from A. G. Little, ‘‘And Now, a Word from Our Detractor: GOP Strategist Frank Luntz Argues Enviros Are Failing—and They’re Mean to Boot.’’ Grist Magazine: Environmental News and Commentary, 31 January 2007. At http://www.grist.org/article/luntz1/. Teaching Environmental Communication Through Rhetorical Controversy ⭈ 99 and communication consultant for a range of corporations, including MSNBC, CNBC, AT&T, Merrill Lynch, and Federal Express, Luntz’s advice is epitomized in his best-selling book, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear (Luntz 2006). A pivotal moment in his career was in 2003, when a memo he wrote to the Republican Party was leaked on the Internet. There, Luntz advised— among other points—that the environment is the issue on which Republicans ‘‘are most vulnerable’’ and therefore needed to pay more attention (133–134). His solution, however, was not necessarily to change environmental policy, but to change how people talk about—or frame—environmental debates. Some of Luntz’s more famous examples implemented by the George W. Bush Administration include ‘‘redefining labels,’’ so that ‘‘drilling for oil’’ becomes ‘‘responsible exploration for energy,’’ ‘‘logging’’ is labeled as creating ‘‘healthy forests,’’ and ‘‘weakening the Clean Air Act’’ is renamed ‘‘Clear Skies’’ (142). In addition to suggesting language that plausibly will sound more positive to audiences who care about the environment, Luntz also provided advice on how to stall implementing policy that targets global warming through communication, including claiming the scientific debate remains open and calling for more ‘‘free and open discussion’’ for the American people (137). Luntz’s work and its popularity signal a new era for environmentalism. The environmental movement has been a success insofar as the majority of people in the United States claim to care about the environment when asked. We, therefore , no longer live in a time when most politicians, corporations, or other institutions will argue that the environment doesn’t matter. Since at least 1988, all significant U.S. presidential candidates claim to care about the environment to some degree. Sales of ‘‘green’’ products are soaring. Even polluters pay billions a year in ‘‘green’’ advertising. Public discourse has thus shifted. Perhaps more than ever before, citizens must distinguish among a range of discourses that claim to promote environmental sustainability but may represent a wide range of agendas. Within this context, it becomes clear that—in addition to learning about what science has established, the figures and events that historically have shaped our world, and the ways a sense of place within broader ecosystems matters—an environmental literacy curriculum should include environmental communication as a fundamental cornerstone. Communication studies professor J. Robert Cox, who is also three-term president of the Sierra Club, the oldest U.S. environmental organization, defines environmental communication as ‘‘the pragmatic and constitutive vehicle for our understanding of the environment as well as our relationships to the natural world; it is the symbolic medium that we use in constructing environmental problems and negotiating society’s di√erent responses to them’’ (Cox 2006: 12). Environmental communication, therefore, involves not only acknowledging 100 ⭈ phaedra c. pezzullo how we talk about the environment (e.g., with which words, through which media, in which tone, etc.), but also the understanding that our symbolic constructions about environmental concerns profoundly shape what we know and how we might act in response. Thus the field of environmental communication reflects the wide range of communication contexts in which the environment is negotiated, including through media, organizations, interpersonal interactions, public participation in decision-making processes, and social movements. For purposes of this volume, I’ll highlight two ways an awareness of the nuances of environmental communication may be incorporated in one’s classroom to improve environmental literacy...